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“In Africa, you never look Presidents in the mouth. They are, as it is said in popular language, groundnut roasters. And you don't look a groundnut roaster in his mouth. Because then he will definitely throw in some grains.” (Ivorian blogger Denis Zado)

Earlier this week, a Parisian judge ordered an inquiry into alleged corruption and embezzlement on the part of three African heads of state: Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, Omar Bongo of Gabon, and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.

Teodoro Obiang has been president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea for thirty years. His luxury apartment and collection of cars are alleged to have been bought with misappropriated funds.

The investigation comes following a complaint filed by Transparency International in December accusing Sassou-Nguesso, Bongo and Obiang of “concealing misappropriated public funds.” Each keep several luxuryresidences in Paris, thought to have been purchased with money that rightly belongs to their people.

Bloggers from each of these countries, and francophone Africa more generally, havelongcriticized Françafrique, France's neocolonial legacy of cozy relations with resource-rich, African dictators. French president Nicholas Sarkozy has failed to end this legacy, despite early promises.

At last!

The French court's decision was greeted by many as a welcome surprise, one that may mark a shift in French attitudes toward Africa.

At last it can be said that the West, after decades of deafness, is slowly coming around to fight this scourge of economic crime that is the gangrene of development in Africa and that fattens black money in Europe and around the world. A flagrant contradiction in the face of justice, good sense, the Rule of Law…and particularly [efforts to] overcome the current economic crisis, which requires that we quickly unmake these contradictions, noxious and unjust for everyone.

Denis Sassou-Nguesso has ruled the Republic of Congo for decades. According to The Guardian, he and close relatives have more than 100 French bank accounts and more than 20 properties.

Bravo to Judge Desset who has put the interest of the people above economics…France must purify itself of its past as watchdog of dictators, clean itself of ethnic conflics and coups d'état. The France that respects us is one that returns to the African people the wealth that is theirs!

I ask Mr. SARKOZY to give a free hand to justice in his country so that the truth comes out. Our black brothers have split blood to denounce the large-scale theft by these godless presidents for whom a taste for luxury is their poverty. France, the world (the poor of this world, who consider your country as a country of laws and of liberty) are watching you. African heads of state have enriched most countries in Europe by putting their money in European banks; Africans know this. To the judges, we know that you will be under pressure from our state thieves in the form of gifts that far exceed your usual monthly salary. Honor your profession.

So I must say, this judge has balls, or rather is delusional, since, from the point of view of Congolese like me, more used to powerlessly witnessing the criminal practices of our leaders, who ends up believing and accepting things by force, the right [of our leaders] to impunity is absolute and inviolable. At the same time, this decision has awakened a certain hope…

When you screw up, you have to pay soon or later; even when you believe yourself above the law. My mother used to say: “The president, first among citizens, cannot be a citizen above the law”…

Dolsie

By what right?

Not everyone is happy about Africans being investigated in France. The ruling inspired nationalistic feelings. Some pointed out the hypocrisy of the French government prosecuting African leaders, when leaders on both sides are guilty.

Do you believe that a French citizen could be judged in Congo? So why do we let a Congolese, president of his state, be judged in France. The stolen money was made in Congo, not in France…A French citizen who kills a Congolese in Congo will never be judged in Congo. A French citizen who causes injury to Congo, France will protect him….

If Congolese justice functioned perfectly YES OF COURSE a French citizen who breaks the law in Congo can (must) be judged in Congo. Nothing prevents it as far as I know. But as there is no justice, or rather, justice is easily bought, we can ask ourselves the question.

Dada Maloba, also commenting on congopage, is skeptical the French government's motives have really changed:

Do you really believe that it's France that will overthrow Sassou? …They want to continue their colonization. France can say this or that, that's their politics. For me, it's results that count. All of us black Africans, in no matter what country, join the BLACK PANTHERS, BLACK POWER movement. That's how we will see the results we seek. Down with Denis Sasou Nguesso, the traitor.

Ivorian blogger Denis Zodo asks “Why these Presidents?” (and not any of the others from the long list of African dictators cozy with Paris). Zodo wants to know who is really behind the lawsuit. Are they Africans from these three countries or is it Transparency International?:

If it is Africans, they should reconsider. We are not for messes at the pinnacle of the state. But this is not a solution that will fix things in our African countries. We have to campaign for change at the level of our governments, but also at the level of our mentalities. That is the only change that will break the deal.

If it's Transparency International take this upon themselves, they should let Africans remove the gangrene from their body. Why is it always up to them to take this kind of initiative in our place? It's the West after all who encourage the predatory attitude of our African governments.

Omar Bongo has been president of Gabon for more than forty years. He and his family own several apartments in the richest neighborhoods in Paris.

On the blog of UPG-Gabon, a Gabonese opposition party, some readers also left comments critical of the court case:

I am flabbergasted, witnessing how theft has become an institution in our country that we can't even fight anymore. The powers that be are sitting on fortunes and on justice so that all recourse and all legal action in the country is virtually impossible.

Can we and should we rejoice that the legal system of another country is getting involved? Most definitely, because it is not in Gabon or in Congo that justice will reach our presidents, for [our] fear of being found dead, or unemployed the next day.

A CONGOLESE magistrate in Brazzaville as opened an investigation against a certain number of French politicians for their complicity with a certain number of Western multinationals in the pillage of Congolese natural resources. Among the persons named in the complaint, which was filed by the association Free Congo in Brazzaville courts, are Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Charles Pasqua and several others. It is a first in the history of justice; a presiding French head of state is being sued for embezzlement in Congo over the “oil and mining legacy” of France in Congo.

To which an anonymous reader replies, tongue in cheek, “Who's leading the investigation?”